The first half of Vikings’ season 6, also its final season, aired in February and the second half will arrive in later this year. The show streams on Netflix.
With movie theaters still being closed and the fear of coronavirus prevalent in people, we have all accepted that the only way to consume new content that comes from all over the world is via OTT platforms. Streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar, ZEE5, Voot, Apple TV+ among many more, usually have something for everybody.
In the month of July, we already saw the release of Tom Hanks starrer Greyhound on Apple TV+ and Charlize Theron starrer The Old Guard on Netflix.
In terms of web series, we saw the release of Abhishek Bachchan and Amit Sadh starrer Breathe: Into the Shadows. The 12-episode series premiered on Amazon Prime Video and has received mixed reviews. Undekhi also dropped on SonyLIV.
The films that are yet to release this month include Sushant Singh Rajput starrer Dil Bechara on Disney+ Hotstar, Vidya Balan starrer Shakuntala Devi on Amazon Prime Video, Kunal Kemmu starrer Lootcase on Disney+ Hostar and Vidyut Jammwal starrer Yaara on ZEE5.
Dil Bechara, starring Sushant Singh Rajput and Sanjana Sanghi, releases on Disney+ Hotstar on July 24. The film, based on John Green’s novel The Fault in our Stars, has been directed by Mukesh Chhabra. Dil Bechara marks the last film of late actor Sushant Singh Rajput who passed away on June 14. The film’s music has been composed by AR Rahman with lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya.
Vidya Balan will play the role of famed mathematician Shakuntala Devi in the biopic that is all set to release on July 31 on Amazon Prime Video. Directed by Anu Menon, the film also stars Sanya Malhotra, Amit Sadh and Jisshu Sengupta.
This FX series has everything in its favour - colourful characters, dark humour, varied settings (every season takes place in different places and times), and excellent writing. Cops face solo gangsters or gangsters with families and your sympathies are dragged all over the place. You think things like -- why did this charismatic rascal had to be a bad person, inherently? There is a character played by David Thewlis in the third reason who is the repelling-yet-compelling sort -- a perfect representation of the show as a whole, I think.
Starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham in the titular roles of Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw, the Fast and Furious spin-off movie featured Idris Elba as villain Brixton Lore.
The Dark Knight is widely considered to be the best superhero movie ever made, though it has little common with the superhero movies being made today. Its ‘superhero’ was just a costumed and well-muscled rich guy – a man without any superhuman abilities.
This is an interactive movie that lets you make decisions for the main character. Following the same dystopian sci-fi genre of the Black Mirror series, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch revolves around young programmer Stefan Butler, who is adapting a fantasy choose-your-own-adventure novel into a video game in 1984.
Written and directed by Jennifer Fox, The Tale is based on her own experiences of child sexual abuse. This is no sanitised version of events. This is harsh reality laid bare - unsparing, unstinting.
Hugh Jackman’s final outing as Wolverine is one of the best superhero movies ever made. This is the Wolverine movie we needed and deserved. A no holds barred film filled with ample gore and eye-popping action, a compelling desolate setting, and marvellous work by Jackman and Patrick Stewart in their last hurrah, Logan is fantastic.
1922 is a decent watch for horror fans. The themes of the film – guilt and ‘every murderer gets his comeuppance’ (epitomised by a character in the line “In the end, we all get caught”) – are as old as time. It unsettles more than it scares and seeks to be a slow-burner.
This documentary film chronicles Chinese city Wuhan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in its initial days. For those who do not know, Wuhan is now considered to be the place from where the novel coronavirus originated.
Tired of stiff and prissy British royalty? Well, let’s take a look at Vikings, the ruthless raiders and warriors who dared to see what lay beyond at the cost of their lives. Many famous Vikings like Harald Bluetooth (after him the Bluetooth technology is named, no kidding) and our own Ragnar Lothbrok, the hero of Vikings, went on to become great kings. Vikings explores the rise of Ragnar to the top – and his inevitable fall -- as well has the story of his sons.
Equal parts swashbuckling piracy adventure and fantasy, Pirates of the Caribbean, or at least the first two films, is wholesome entertainment for the whole family.
Despite its mixed critical reviews, The Mummy (1999) is simply one of the best adventure movies ever made. Brendan Fraser's Rick O'Connell is an American adventurer who accidentally awakens a cursed high priest Imhotep from the era of Seti I, a pharaoh that ruled Egypt around 3300 years ago. The special effects handled by Industrial Light & Magic still hold up superbly.
Helmed by Drew Goddard and co-written by him and Joss Whedon, The Cabin in the Woods is a subversive horror film that takes the hackneyed remote forest cabin premise of so many horror films and turns it on its head. The result is a smartly written and acted movie. Chris Hemsworth plays the role of Curt Vaughan, who is one of the college students who go on a vacation to that forest cabin.
A quintessential adventure movie, it is hard to choose one among these Indiana Jones movies, though I would probably rate the original as the best. A poll from a couple of years ago deemed Harrison Ford's fictional archaeology professor the most popular movie character, beating out Batman and his own Han Solo. It is easy to see why. Indiana Jones lives the life many dream of. There is nothing remotely dull in his life, it appears, as he fights the Nazis, cult leaders and all manner of scum of society... and comes out of the fray alive and still pining for more adventure.
In this Sam Hargrave directorial, Chris Hemsworth’s character Tyler Rake, a mercenary, is recruited by another mercenary Nik Khan (Golshifteh Farahani) to rescue the son (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) of an imprisoned crime lord (Pankaj Tripathi). Randeep Hooda, Priyanshu Painyuli and David Harbour also star.
While the plot and characters are thin, Extraction is all the same a gripping piece of entertainment.
Relive your childhood and follow the adventures of ultra-rich Scrooge McDuck, and his three grandnephews Huey, Dewey and Louie in the classic series.
This show is based on the children book series of the same name and follows two young siblings as they try to protect themselves and their fortune from the devilish Count Olaf (played with a menacing glee by the inimitable Neil Patrick Harris). The series is the right mix of horror and comedy and you scarcely mind the improbability of the events unfolding before you, since it is incredibly entertaining.
The animated series follows a mad but brilliant scientist Rick Sanchez and his naive, impressionable grandson Morty Smith's adventures across faraway galaxies, planets, parallel worlds, different realities and so on. Rick and Morty boasts some of the most intelligent writing in the medium currently, with jokes that are easy to miss if the attention wavers even a little. And before you have managed to wrap your head around it, the show has already moved ahead.
This one is among the weirder and eccentric shows. Frodo of Lord of the Rings movies, Elijah Wood, plays an everyman whose life is turned into a veritable whirlwind a flamboyantly British "holistic" detective; holistic because he believes everything in the universe to be interconnected. And indeed, he has a seemingly preternatural ability. The feel of the show is like from one of the more strange comic-books from the 80s came to life. The story is loosely based on the writings of the great Douglas Adams.
An Amazon Original, Lore is based on a podcast of the same name. Every episode of the show tells the origins of a horror story and although it is more of a documentary than drama, it is a slickly produced show that is engaging enough for a binge. You might want to check out the podcast as well. It is sublime.
After Life has been written and directed by popular British comedian and actor Ricky Gervais. Gervais is known for his snarky, brutally honest style of comedy. And that is what he brings to the table here. Except this time he is not hosting any awards show and offending the rich and famous people of showbiz. In After Life, we see another facet of Gervais — the performer. In the series, he has lost the love of his life, his wife, and he finds it hard to keep up the pretence of normality. That results in some heartfelt, but truly hilarious moments.